One of our resolutions for 2013 here on Retro Renovation is to start featuring more fabulous vintage home improvement catalogs — featuring kitchens, bathrooms, decorating, light fixtures, house plans — the list goes on. What better place to start this new series than with a fantastic 1958 kitchen catalog from Sears — with 32 pages of great information and style — oh if only we could still order from this catalog. The optimistic color combinations and fun designs will have you wishing that one of these kitchens could magically appear in your own home.
So many of the kitchen plans featured in this catalog have such a cheery feeling to them. The cover image shown above illustrates how happy the inhabitants of the house are with their Sears kitchen — and why wouldn’t they be? A lovely yellow cast iron sink surrounded by a charming dotted laminate counter — greenery sprinkled around the kitchen — and of course that comfortable custom yellow booth seating that they are so enjoying.
Check out this lovely yellow and mint green duo. The before and after illustrations are fun to see. The storage space that was added alone — what a life saver. The counter top and flooring are a great pair — and I like how they matched the refrigerator to the cabinets and the stove and oven with the tile backsplash. My only question — what happened to the cat?
The natural birch kitchen above is warm and inviting. It even has a dish washer. My favorite part — that linoleum floor — I bet that wouldn’t show any fur balls and the inlaid border makes it feel special.
Here’s another vibrant kitchen — with a fun floor pattern that coordinates with the wallpapered soffits — yum. I’m not sure where they stashed the fridge in this kitchen, but the rounded knick knack shelving around the windows and at the end of the cabinets makes me cease to care. This would be such a great kitchen for entertaining — with the open plan and the cook top in the middle of the room, it would be so easy to simultaneously cook and socialize with party guests.
Another great layout for entertaining is this “attractive fir kitchen” with breakfast bar. Can you just imagine having your morning coffee and cereal at the breakfast bar, while gazing out the strategically placed window as the morning light filters in? Pure bliss.
Or how about this sunny space — with its warm wood and lemon yellow color scheme. The argyle-esque wallpaper on the soffit coordinates so well with the window treatments and the upholstery on the stool. The interior designers and graphic designers sure were able to have a lot of fun in 1950s kitchens — so many of the kitchens in this catalog give us a primer on how to combine real pattern and real color beautifully.
Here’s a classic white and red kitchen to consider — with the addition of several other colors — blue, green, and yellow. There is a lot of color in this space, but it all works together so well — which just goes to show you how versatile white kitchen cabinets can be. I for one, would have never thought to put a deep blue floor in my kitchen — but in this case it really does make the room.
Of course the colorful steel kitchen above is my favorite of the bunch — hey, it’s pink –what did you expect? But for those who prefer mint or yellow, Sears has you covered. What I wouldn’t give for pink cabinets with matching pink appliances. The dark, monochromatic patterned linoleum floor and the cracked ice laminate counter top edged with metal really set off the light rosy pink. Just heavenly.
Here’s a yummy kelley green booth with matching cracked ice, steel rimmed laminate table top — perfectly nestled under the windowsill full of lush, green plants. The fern printed curtains add to the greenery theme.
This Sears kitchen catalog even has illustrations to help you choose the perfect laminate counter top for you kitchen — if only we had these bright and colorful options today instead of the sea of greige “Graveyard of the Atlantic” colors that currently fill the market. One can dream, right?
Heck, you could even get a matching cast iron sink (I’ll take pink, please) complete with hudee ring.
If you’d like to ogle all 32 pages of this vintage Sears kitchen catalog, check out the gallery below — it contains a wealth of information on cabinet sizes and kitchen layouts and is chock-a-block with great vintage illustrations — which we’ve inserted at even larger sizes. Which kitchen would you choose?
Thanks to the MBJ Collection / archive.org for featuring this catalog via Creative Commons license.
Tips to view slide show: Click on first image… it will enlarge and you can also read my captions… move forward or back via arrows below the photo… you can start or stop at any image:
Scott says
LOL, two friends of mine and I were just watching a season 1 episode of Hazel this past Friday night and trying to figure out what that was called. The one in the Baxter’s kitchen was yellow rubber.
Thanks Pam, there’s one more thing to list for the dream kitchen! 🙂
pam kueber says
🙂
Susan Benedict Obeng says
Pam and Kate,
I am absolutely enchanted with this catalog. I was born in 1958, which makes it that much more special to me. So many wonderful ideas and color, color, color! Thanks for everything you do on this coolest of websites!!
pam kueber says
Thank you for your lovely comment, Susan!!! I am a ’59 girl myself!
Elizabeth Miller says
Wow thanks for posting this, missed it the first time somehow. Was great seeing an actual catalog of actual kitchens from the same year my house was built. Seems like my kitchen may have originally been very similar to the natural birch style. Still have the cabinets, but while undoing some re-dos we have found evidence of a similar green paint. Great inspiration!
Scott says
Wow, how clever how they notched out a section of the cabinets for the stools in the “Attractive Fir” and “White Steel” designs!
Love that!
pam kueber says
Agreed!
Cyndi says
I just found your website today and I am besides myself laughing at how ironic all you are showing in the pictures is exactly what we are still living with having acquired when purchasing our home completed in 1963! We LOVE this house and all of it’s retro, mint condition features; have all the original sinks, tubs, cabinets, etc. Bathrooms are baby blue/pink and yellow in “mint condition”; with the exception of the yellow bathroom shower floor. Custom made laminate cabinet in bathroom is similiar to the one shown of blush pink with light grey on a white background.Our built in bar in the Basement has the yellow laminate type shown above with the metal rim along with the black vinyl chairs and front! Sadly, we are in the process of renovating part of the Kitchen as the countertop needs replacing and we were lucky to find, after much research, a local guy who is making the additional birch cabinets to match the existing ones we have which are “still in mint condition” (mind you, with 2 1/2 inch round silver knobs-found them too!!!). I would love to post pix of the rooms if you are interested. Just tore down the gold velour chandeliar wallpaper in the Diningroom the other day~it was very heavy vinyl and came off like “butter in sheets”! Our renovation is to keep the retro feel and character of this 50 year old ranch; but update mildly. SO HAPPY I found this site~my husband’s gonna flip when he sees in the pix you posted all that we have. Thanks for this great site!!!
Cyndi says
Forgot to mention the laminated white and gold walls in the downstairs bathroom!!! Look like they were hung yesterday~my friends LOVE this house for his character…it goes to show you, they don’t make things the way they used…they last forever from back them~PRICELESS!!!! :0)
Michele DeGroat says
Welcome Cindi – I found this website awhile ago and also flipped when I found out that our 1962 frozen in place (one previous owner) custom built house, stuck in the era, had appeal to more people than just me! I live on Long Island, NY and know of no one who is into the retro look around here. I have some beautiful pictures but need to figure out how to upload or post them. When I saw Pam’s illustration of the American Standard console sink circa 1962 I could not believe my eyes. Mine is “Ming” Green. I have a beautiful Sherwin Williams paint catalog showing prospective interiors with their paints circa 1959 (?). Would send it along to Pam – somebody please tell me how. I love this site. Seems only the mid-westerners get this trend.
Janice says
I’m about to retro renovate our master bath so am looking forward to a post like this for bathrooms. I think I have a color inspiration, but maybe I’ll see something I like better. When I first bought our 1954 ranch five years ago, I purchased a 1950’s’ Better Homes and Garden Home Decorating book and it’s been immensely helpful in selectign colors and looking for the right home furnishings. Of course, my own kitchen renovation was all Pam Kitchen inspired!
pam kueber says
Janice, we just did this one — https://retrorenovation.com/2013/01/14/24-pages-of-vintage-bathroom-design-ideas-from-crane-1949-catalog/
There may be others on the blog. I forget.
Janice says
Thanks Pam. I got behind in reading the blog each day and I’m getting caught up, but I started from oldest post to the newest and I just hadn’t gotten to the bathroom one yet. That’s the flaw of starting at the back and working forward!
Joe Felice says
Was this the first era of home kitchen renovations? Lots of beautiful colors! And I think this was the first appearance for peninsulas and breakfast bars.
Heidi Swank says
We are just finishing up kitchen plans and were unsure if we could pair a square tile backsplash with laminate counter that goes up the wall a bit. But there it is in the first picture! And it looks great!
Thanks Pam! One problem solved!
pam kueber says
Yay!
RangerSmith says
These are so cool! A few years ago I had Marmoleum sheet linoleum installed and now I really wich I’d had an inlaid boarder included like the Natural Birch Kitchen. Oh well, these are really great. Thanks for sharing. This is a great resource.
tammyCA says
I think I like the “picture frame” kitchen the most…the layout, big window, scallops, and rounded end cap…but, I sure wish we had these choices so easily…when did “cheerful” go out of style? I swore off watching HGTV because of all the dull, flat colors, industrial style (blech) but was sick yesterday & so watched some of the shows. Wouldn’t you know some hipster couple looked down their noses at a vintage pink/black tiled bathroom & other vintage things! Naturally, same old, same old -they all say they want granite, ss appliances, mile high vertical ceilings…the only way I like high ceilings is if they are angled/sloped, with wood posts/beams or paneled…I could never live in the narrow vertical plain high ceilings of newer homes. Why do people nowadays want to live in something that looks like a clinical, harsh laboratory?